Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Wood-Based Carbon Materials and Their Application for Oxygen Reduction

Abstract

Recently, great attention has been focused on biomass-derived electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). In the present study, the wood-derived nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials with graphene-like structures have been synthesized from wood biomass using a chemical activation method with NaOH to achieve a high specific surface area (SSA). Then, the activated carbon materials have been doped with nitrogen using dicyandiamide (DCDA) as a cheaper nitrogen precursor. The synthesized catalyst's morphology, structure, and composition have been characterized using TEM, XPS, Raman Spectroscopy, and ICP-OES. The activity of the prepared catalysts was evaluated for ORR in the 0.1 M KOH solution employing the rotating disk electrode (RDE) method. The nitrogen-doped carbon materials have been shown a high electrocatalytic activity and stability for the oxygen reduction reaction. The number of electrons transferred per O 2 molecule is close to 4.0. Acknowledgment This project has received funding under the Baltic Research Programme project “Sustainably produced nanomaterials for energy applications (SuNaMa)” (No. S-BMT-21-12, LT08-2-LMT-K-01-055).